17. My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT: “If you
don’t eat your vegetables you’ll never grow up.”

18. My mother taught me GENETICS: “You’re just like your
father.”

19. My mother taught me ROOTS: “Shut that door behind you.
Do you think you were born in a barn?”

20. My mother taught me JUSTICE: “One day you’ll have kids,
and I hope that turn out just like you!”

222. GOD AND SATAN

Do you think YOU will pass it on???

One day Satan and Jesus were having a conversation. Satan
had just come from the Garden of Eden, and he was gloating and boasting.

"Yes, sir, I just caught the world full of people down
there. Set me a trap, used bait I knew they couldn't resist. Got 'em all!"

"What are you going to do with them?" Jesus asked.

Satan replied, "Oh, I'm gonna have fun! I'm gonna teach
them how to marry and divorce each other, how to hate and abuse each other, how
to drink and smoke and curse. I'm gonna teach them how to invent guns and bombs
and kill each other. I'm really gonna have fun!"

"And what will you do when you done with them?" Jesus
asked.

"Oh, I'll kill 'em," Satan glared proudly.

"How much do you want for them?" Jesus asked.

"Oh, you don't want those people. They ain't no good. Why,
you'll take them and they'll just hate you. They'll spit on you, curse you and
kill you! You don't want those people!"

"How much?" He asked again.

Satan looked at Jesus and sneered, "All your tears, and all
your blood."

Jesus said, "DONE!" Then He paid the price.

Isn't it funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but
question what the Bible says.

Isn't it funny how everyone wants to go to heaven provided
they do not have to believe, think, say, or do anything the Bible says. Or is it
scary? Isn't it funny how someone can say "I believe in GOD" but still follow
Satan (who, by the way, also "believes" in GOD).

Isn't it funny how the lewd, crude, violent, vulgar and
obscene pass freely through the media, but the public discussion of Jesus is
suppressed in the school and workplace.

Isn't it funny how someone can be so fired up for Christ on
Sunday, but be an invisible Christian the rest of the week.

Are you laughing?

Isn't it funny how when you go to forward this message, you
will not tell it to many people because you're not sure what they believe, or
what they will think of you for telling them.

Isn't it funny how I can be more worried about what other
people think of me than what GOD thinks of me?

Please pass this on?

Have a great day! and remember God loves you and so do I!!

223 WHISPERS

The man whispered, ‘God, speak to me’
and a meadowlark sang

But the man did not hear.

So the man yelled, ‘God, speak to me’
and the thunder rolled across

the sky.

But the man did not listen.

The man looked around and said ‘God let me
see you’. And a star

shone brightly.

But the man did not see.

And the man shouted, ‘God show me a
miracle’. And a life was born.

But the man did not notice.

So the man cried out in despair, ‘Touch me
God, and let me know

you are here’. Whereupon God reached
down and touched the man.

But the man brushed the butterfly away…and
walked on.

The man cried, ‘God I need your
help!’ And an e-mail arrived

reaching out with good news and encouragement.

But the man deleted it and continued
crying.

This is a reminder that God is always
around us in the little

and simple things that we take for
granted….even in our

electronic age.

Don’t miss out on a
blessing

because it isn’t packaged in the way
that we expect.

224 THE WORDS OF SIMEON. "A SWORD
WILL PIERCE YOUR SOUL".

In my experience the most misquoted words in the Bible
are those of Simeon. He is misquoted as saying “A sword will pierce your heart.”
What he said was “A sword will pierce your soul….” Luke 2:35. If a mortal heart
were pierced then the pain would cease at death. But when an immortal soul is
pierced then the pain continues after death. Is that why Our Lady of Medjugorje
is sometimes seen to be crying? She sees our sins continuing to hurt her son,
the sword pierces her soul, and she cries.

225 HOW TO GAIN SPIRITUAL
BENEFIT FROM ANNOYANCES.

A reader writes: On the tube in London I am annoyed by
the behaviour of other people playing music loudly through earphones, eating
burgers and swearing (not always at the same time.) Is this an opportunity for
growth?

Fr. Tim Finigan replies: One parishioner in a London
parish that I served in some years ago told me that on his regular commute, he
had managed to read the entire Summa Theologica of St Thomas by taking a volume
at a time from the library and reading a little each day. Nevertheless, tube
journeys also offer opportunities for many venial sins, especially that of rash
judgement. To avoid hypocrisy here, I offer an unambiguous mea culpa (the noisy
headphones are a particular trigger!) While I cannot offer unimpeachable
example, I hope some suggestions will be helpful.

St Josemaria Escriva, in a much quoted point from The
Way (174) wrote: “Don’t say: ‘That person gets on my nerves.’ Think: ‘That
person sanctifies me.’” Offering up minor inconveniences as a penance is a
practice that really does help to bring something positive to mundane
experiences. Another strategy is to reflect that every person has a life of good
and bad influences, sins that need to be forgiven, good deeds that are valued by
God, relationships that affect others. Despite the great blessing of being
handed on the Catholic faith, we have not responded to that gift with anything
like the generosity that we should. Our act of contrition for making rash
judgements can be extended to include our underlying hypocrisy in making them.

And, of course, travelling time can be used to good
purpose. CTS pamphlets are very handy and perhaps we should revive the old
practice of leaving them behind on the train as an alternative to the free
papers. God’s providence might make it the occasion of someone’s conversion. If
you are fortunate enough to have an iTelephone (as my MC insists on calling it)
you can use it to read the Summa Theologica which is included in the iPieta app.
Absent such wizardry, why not say a Hail Mary for each person in the carriage in
between stations?

Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her so that
she would be “without stain”. And the Church would be without stain if we were
not a part of it! The Church would have one less wrinkle if I committed one less
sin. Martin Luther criticised Erasmus of Rotterdam for remaining in the Catholic
Church despite its corruption, but Erasmus answered him: ‘I put up with this
Church, in the hope that one day it will become better, just as it is
constrained to put up with me in the hope that one day I will become better’.

We should ask Christ to forgive all of our inconsiderate
judgements and the many offences we heap upon his Bride, and as a result upon
Him as well. Try to tell a man who is truly in love that his bride is ugly or a
‘good-for-nothing’, and see if you can take his ire….

Once you have.…. wept with the Church, once you have
humbled yourself at its feet, God can command you as he has done in the past to
raise your voice against ‘the wounds of the Church’. But not before. The Saints
have applied to the Church that which Job said about God, according to the
Vulgate version of the Bible then in use: “Even if God were to kill me I would
still have recourse to him”